I have owned my Electric Cafemino (2009) for a few months and have to say I'm finding it very frustrating. The Toper website quotes 10m to 12m roasting times but my results for a full load are very different.

With the heat setting at Maximum (250) I can get to first crack with most beans around 17mins - 18mins, but having the temperature up so high means the outside of the beans become much darker than the roast on the inside. The result in the cup isn't good because you have a coffee that has just finished first crack and should be at city+ roast and it looks more like a vienna roast and you definitely get a lot of bitters in the aftertaste. The element is located inside the drum so the surface of the beans are always going to get slightly darker than the roast level (based on cracks) suggests it should.

The alternative is to have temperature setting down much lower but then your roasts will be taking well over 30 minutes. I don't have a temperature probe and have completely stalled out on a few roasts where I have tried to profile the temperature in a more familiar curve.

The post 30 min roasts taste good, not quite as bright as the same beans roasted in 15 - 20 mins as a smaller batch, say 500g - but then the sampling spoon only works with 750g plus because it is located at the very top of the drum.

In summary find someone who owns one and is getting results you would be happy with with a wide range of beans - hard, soft, washed, natural, and pulped natural. Be very wary of anyone who pops up in a forum saying they are getting "dark" roasts finished in 12 mins on an electric cafemino as they probably work for Toper.

I have read that they all run differently but this has been my experience to date. I have also heard that the gas version is far more efficient.

I have owned my Electric Cafemino (2009) for a few months and have to say I'm finding it very frustrating. The Toper website quotes 10m to 12m roasting times but my results for a full load are very different.

With the heat setting at Maximum (250) I can get to first crack with most beans around 17mins - 18mins, but having the temperature up so high means the outside of the beans become much darker than the roast on the inside. The result in the cup isn't good because you have a coffee that has just finished first crack and should be at city+ roast and it looks more like a vienna roast and you definitely get a lot of bitters in the aftertaste. The element is located inside the drum so the surface of the beans are always going to get slightly darker than the roast level (based on cracks) suggests it should.

The alternative is to have temperature setting down much lower but then your roasts will be taking well over 30 minutes. I don't have a temperature probe and have completely stalled out on a few roasts where I have tried to profile the temperature in a more familiar curve.

The post 30 min roasts taste good, not quite as bright as the same beans roasted in 15 - 20 mins as a smaller batch, say 500g - but then the sampling spoon only works with 750g plus because it is located at the very top of the drum.

In summary find someone who owns one and is getting results you would be happy with with a wide range of beans - hard, soft, washed, natural, and pulped natural. Be very wary of anyone who pops up in a forum saying they are getting "dark" roasts finished in 12 mins on an electric cafemino as they probably work for Toper.

I have read that they all run differently but this has been my experience to date. I have also heard that the gas version is far more efficient.

Thanks for confirming my observations of just looking through the web site:

Clay34 Said:

I looked up the Cafemino web site and in the description of the machines it said: " Roasting Time : 10 Minutes to 12 Minutes. 10 Minutes for Brown roast , 12 Minutes for Dark roast." Then under the video section under gas it shows the roaster hitting 234 at well past 17 minutes and they dump the beans into the cooler at over 19 minutes. That just seems like a long time to roast to me. First I thought the written text was very fast, a 10 min city roast is fast to me. But a 19 min plus roast is dragging to me as well. What did you think of the videos? The other observation that jumps out at me from watching the video is how little aggitation occurs in the sight glass below the sampler. In my own roasting if my bean were aggitated that little I would scorch them on one side. The video and text that I am referring to can be found here: http://www.cafemino.com/cafemino.php?sayfa_id=350&kategori_id=350&id=4&lng=1

Nick, In my research on 1kg roasters I came across this issue for the electric Cafemino, it seems for awhile in 07 and 08 toper was sending multiple elements so you could tune in roast times with voltage. I can say that the distributer in N America have there stats for the electric at 20-30 minutes and 10-15 for gas, electric is no longer an option for me.

I have just spoken to someone else who was having similar problems with their gas Cafemino where the beans were borderline burnt by the end of first crack. They get better results, as have I with 750g batches. Pure speculation here but I think the drum may not be that thick so to get heat into the beans when you first drop them in you have to give the heat a really big rev to actually get the roast going. Problem then being fiding the sweet spot between keeping the heat high enough to keep the roast going but low enough not to scorch the beans.

I can't stress enough how much I think you should find a couple of people getting results you'd be happy with the roaster you buy. I'm sure the US distributor can give you some references - if you find these people try and get some roast profiles off them, you'll save a lot of money on burned coffee. If you go for a toper it can be pretty hard work dealing with them directly. I emailed them to tell them I was having trouble getting my roast times anywhere near what they say on their website and he replied suggesting I should get a 3kg roaster. Curious.

I have just spoken to someone else who was having similar problems with their gas Cafemino where the beans were borderline burnt by the end of first crack. They get better results, as have I with 750g batches. Pure speculation here but I think the drum may not be that thick so to get heat into the beans when you first drop them in you have to give the heat a really big rev to actually get the roast going. Problem then being fiding the sweet spot between keeping the heat high enough to keep the roast going but low enough not to scorch the beans.

I can't stress enough how much I think you should find a couple of people getting results you'd be happy with the roaster you buy. I'm sure the US distributor can give you some references - if you find these people try and get some roast profiles off them, you'll save a lot of money on burned coffee. If you go for a toper it can be pretty hard work dealing with them directly. I emailed them to tell them I was having trouble getting my roast times anywhere near what they say on their website and he replied suggesting I should get a 3kg roaster. Curious.

Thanks for the input on the Cafemino, and your advice to talk to owners is very sound.

I have not seen many have the problems you are having with the gas version. Breeze has bumped his up to 30 psi instead of the recommended 25 psi but that isn't going to help with burnt beans at first crack. I know when I push the Hottop b with 300g roasts I have to use a higher drop in (350f-365f) then I would if I was using 150g (250f-314f) to keep roast times short enough to be able to cut the heat at the start of first or before. I know this is for a very different roaster I use but the concept is the same.

I do plan on heading up to Canada to have some hands on with the Cafemino at the distributor but when it comes to the Diedrich IR-1 personal testimony is going to be a bit hard to get since I don't think anybody has one yet.

I like how the Diedrich's IR-1 is called a homeroaster on their site and then they say the starting price will be something like $6500... really? I supose if I won the lotto I would have a homeroaster like that... cool stuff though for sure!

I have owned my Electric Cafemino (2009) for a few months and have to say I'm finding it very frustrating. The Toper website quotes 10m to 12m roasting times but my results for a full load are very different.

With the heat setting at Maximum (250) I can get to first crack with most beans around 17mins - 18mins, but having the temperature up so high means the outside of the beans become much darker than the roast on the inside. The result in the cup isn't good because you have a coffee that has just finished first crack and should be at city+ roast and it looks more like a vienna roast and you definitely get a lot of bitters in the aftertaste. The element is located inside the drum so the surface of the beans are always going to get slightly darker than the roast level (based on cracks) suggests it should.

The alternative is to have temperature setting down much lower but then your roasts will be taking well over 30 minutes. I don't have a temperature probe and have completely stalled out on a few roasts where I have tried to profile the temperature in a more familiar curve.

I used to own an electric Cafemino, one of the early ones and I could easily get a dark roast well into second crack in 17 minutes or less. When I first got mine (it was one of the very early ones), the heating elements were around 2.9Kw combined power. This caused a LOT of problems. I worked with Toper to improve my roaster, I asked for much lower power elements to speed up roasts and prevent the elements from burning out too quickly on 240V supplies. The roast times with 2.9Kw elements were nearly 25 minutes for a dark roast which came down to 16 mins or so with 1600W elements (2 800W elements)! The roasts are better quality and the heating elements were still going strong after more than 400kg of coffee, before I sold it. The Physics of why this happens is a bit complicated to go into, but happen it does. In addition very high drum temps are not a great idea....but I suspect this is because your heating elements might be quite powerful. You may want to check how many watts your elements are pulling and if it's more than 1600W combined (800W each), get some 800W or 900W elements from Toper. You will get a slower warm up but faster roasts...temp should be set to around 190-200 with those elements.

I am not sure Toper totally understood the points I was trying to make and continued shipping roasters with elements I felt were far too powerful.

The only other problem you might be having is if you only roasting a Kilo or so and not letting the roaster warm up properly. I used to warm up the 1600W cafemino for at 30 minutes, then roast around 20kg.

P.S. The elements last well at higher wattages on lower voltage supplies, I suspect because the tension is indufficient to bridge the insulation when the elements get really hot..

I can't speak to the electric model but in a prior post I "scratched my head" over the references to 12 minute roasts and 20 minute roasts, on a gas unit. I can play my game according to various rules depending on the bean and roast level I'm looking for in 17 minutes tops. I can roast any bean to the beginning of second crack in 15 minutes if I don't add drum air or temperature adjustments, a "profile less" roast, without burning.

As I posted before, I had my gas pressure set at around 29psi as opposed to the suggested 25psi. I've been operating off the same 100# propane bottle since the machine was new. The other day I ran out of cooking gas at the beginning of a long weekend and had guests in my apartment so I moved the roaster bottle to cooking duty. Tuesday I got delivery of a new tanks and roasted Wednesday. The first batch was a 500 gram batch of decaf. I was only keeping half an eye on it, following my profile for that coffee. At 10 minutes, when I caught it, the roast was way too advanced, but how could this be? I decided I was not seeing things correctly but dumped at 12 minutes when I was sure I was burning beans!

After investigation I found that the pressure, at the machine, after the secondary regulator was 34psi. I now believe that my pressure had been slowly decreasing as the tank emptied and the new tank jacked it far beyond what it should have been. I adjusted the regulator back to 28psi, next roast good.

I will now monitor the pressure regularly to insure that delivered pressure is a constant, as this should not be an unnoticed variable.

I am now exploring the possibility of the Diedrich IR-3 and the Toper TKMSX-3, if for nothing else the amount of small roasters that are out there using them. In my reading I keep getting the impression that there is more online support for 3kg roasters from small shop owners, I also get the feeling support will be better from Diedrich or Toper for the 3kg roasters (I hope I am wrong about this but it seems true from a sales perspective).

The disadvantage I see with the 3kg roaster is not putting it in my basement like I would have with the 1kg since it will more then likely go quickly into business use which means inspection and insurance complications that I think would be solved by locating it in a shed. I know I would have to be using an afterburner and maybe other things I am not thinking about yet. Would a house hold gas supply give enough pressure to run a 3kg roaster?

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